After a flurry of first information and the loudly divided fan response, the people behind NINJA TURTLES have been quieter than a turtle in space. That is to say, we haven’t heard a thing as they do… whatever it is they do.
Now a bit of new information has come from co-creator Kevin Eastman, someone who has been involved with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics more or less since they were first created way back in 1984. While the big news is that he is, for the first time, writing and drawing his own complete TMNT comic, in the process of being interviewed about this endeavor he shared some thoughts about what’s going on with the upcoming movie version. And it’s good news.
“I talked to [producer] Scott Mednick yesterday, and he’s seen the most recent 50 [script] pages and said it’s as good as the last version — they’ve really knocked it out of the park. I’ve seen a chunk of it, and it’s going to be a great movie, despite what everybody thinks.” Which he is of course going to say, whether it’s true or not. But here’s where the good news comes in – NINJA TURTLES was recently delayed out of December 2013 and into May 16th, 2014, and Eastman explained why: “Essentially they pushed it back for two reasons: One is the director, Jonathan Liebesman, wanted to make sure he could do the effects to the level he wants them at, and the fight scenes to the way they should be. Also, their release date is almost exactly on the 30th [TMNT] anniversary. May 5, 1984 is when the first Turtles comic came out. May 16, 2014, is almost exactly 30 years after. So basically it’s an anniversary movie now.”
Eastman is also working closely with the movie’s pre-production, doing character designs and sketches and collaborating on a concept/idea level with everyone from the writers fo director Jonathan Liebesman. And, of course, Eastman wants any fans out there to know he truly believes in what’s happening with the movie. As he so aptly put it: “… what they’re doing with the movie is creating its own story, but it has to be true to the source material or we’ll get fucking murdered. To be blunt.”
My vote goes out to Michelangelo as being absolutely gorgeous. What say you?
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